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April 18, 2006

A land use plan for Jamestown

The town council approved a contract tonight with Piedmont Triad Council of Governments to begin developing a land use plan for Jamestown. It'll cost up to about $40,000 -- although that number is likely to come down when the town hires a planner soon. He or she will be able to do some of the work bringing the cost down.

The town has never had a land-use plan. Does it need one? Well, I guess that depends on your perspective. Usually they're used to guide zoning decisions and set long range goals. As an example, several small residential properties along Main Street have come up for zoning requests lately for business use. They've been granted with the idea that it seemed the right thing to do. A land use plan would say give guidance as to whether it's the right thing.

Developing it, will take 18 to 24 months.

See what else they did below the jump.

Council approved a resolution supporting PTCOG's efforts to protect local governments' franchising rights for cable television. PTCOG administers the town's cable contract and is concerned about several bills in Congress that would transfer franchising authority to the FCC.

Councilman Keith Volz brought up the idea of getting some training in the National Incident Management System, a FEMA program to help communities prepare for disaster response.

Met, unexpectedly, in closed session for personnel reasons. The closed session wasn't on the agenda or advertised.

Posted by Jonathan Jones at April 18, 2006 11:15 PM

Comments

Jamestown does have a land use plan! There is a MAP, dated 10/13/03,in Town Hall! It hasn't been followed, but then, why would anyone expect it to be? Doesn't make any difference as government employees have a way of 'going along with someone else's programs'thus spending more taxpayers money that's evaporating as we speak. There's approx. 3,000 people in Jamestown. Same amount of people when Study plan was done. Why on earth would we need a Planner?

Posted by: Shirley deLong at April 21, 2006 2:24 PM

Welcome to the blog, Shirley. It's good to have you here.

I'll have to look for that map. Ms. Billings told me Jamestown didn't have a land development plan, hence the decision to enter into this PTCOG contract. Maybe there's a difference between "land development" and "land-use" plans and I got it confused, but that's the way I understood things.

As for needing a planner, well, you know I can't give you an answer one way or the other. This position was one where rather than replacing Billings "Assistant Town Manager and Financial Officer" position, she asked that they hire a financial officer and a planner.

Posted by: Jonathan Jones at April 21, 2006 2:34 PM